Bricked Droid during flashing -- a challenge for the experts

Here's a problem for the experts. The Motorola Droid 1 is sometimes called "unbrickable", but I'm afraid this one might be the exception. It was being flashed with a new ROM when the battery was accidentally pulled. Now it won't turn on at all. Nothing appears on the screen when the power button is pressed. I've tried holding down X when powering on, and that also doesn't do anything. I've also tried holding down Up when powering on, and that won't bring anything up either. When the Droid is connected over USB to the computer, the computer doesn't detect anything coming up when I try to power the Droid on. There has been no physical or water damage. The battery is full. Experts -- what can I try next? Thanks.

<snip> Now it won't turn on at all. Nothing appears on the screen when the power button is pressed. I've tried holding down X when powering on, and that also doesn't do anything. I've also tried holding down Up when powering on, and that won't bring anything up either. <snip>

Its not a battery issue, its your droid having an "I don't know what do" issue. If it lost power during the middle of flashing you have no O.S. to give the phone instructions. I honestly don't know of anything that can be done.

Developer

honestly ive formated my boot, system, and data partition and all it does is boot into recovery instead of the rom. im not sure what this is pulling the battery during a flash isnt the worst thing you can do, ive done worse. even on the incredible which seems to be more brickable doesnt do anything, ive pulled the battery multiple times. i would say see if its the battery by borrowing your friends or buying a new one. if it still doesnt work and you have insurance then take it in and get a replacement, if it doesnt boot they can adb to check the contents of the system. or flash the sbf. they will have to scrap it.. anyway good luck, hope it works out for you.

I think in this case, he might have pulled the battery during the bootloader flashing phase, thus not even leaving it with a functional bootloader. Without the bootloader, these things don't even know how to power on. In that case, a JTAG port would be the only hope (and the knowledge/equipment to use it)

Just to be clear, I wasn't the one that actually pulled the battery out I'm just trying to fix it. I think what happened is what Dave12308 said, that the battery was pulled when the bootloader was flashing, so now it doesn't have a bootloader. I've tried a couple batteries -- that's definitely not the problem. Insaneneivisis -- you mention doing adb, is this possible without the bootloader? It doesn't seem as though it is willing to communicate via USB, but I was hoping there would be some way to initiate this. Otherwise I was hoping that someone has some info about JTAG access to the board.

I did find mention of what "appears to be a JTAG port" on the main board of the DROID from a thread from wayyyyy back in the pre-root days. So there may be one, but it would require complete disassembly of the device to get to it.

Developer

Just to be clear, I wasn't the one that actually pulled the battery out I'm just trying to fix it. I think what happened is what Dave12308 said, that the battery was pulled when the bootloader was flashing, so now it doesn't have a bootloader. I've tried a couple batteries -- that's definitely not the problem. Insaneneivisis -- you mention doing adb, is this possible without the bootloader? It doesn't seem as though it is willing to communicate via USB, but I was hoping there would be some way to initiate this. Otherwise I was hoping that someone has some info about JTAG access to the board.

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It was being flashed with a new ROM when the battery was accidentally pulled.

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thats what i read you were flashing a rom, a rom and an sbf are 2 completely different things. a rom does not effect the bootloader in anyway. a sbf does, if you were installing a rom then your replacing the /system directory and the contents inside the boot.img. pulling the battery in this would not brick your phone it would simply have a half installed system/boot.